Learning to Run
by Fragile-Strength
Summary: And once she started to run, Kate knew she would never stop.


_AN ---A little dip back into the Lost universe, even as Firefly is pulling at my heartstrings... Anyway, for anyone who doesn't get it, running makes Kate queasy. And for anyone else who doesn't get it, this is our very own Kate Austen, in her seventh grade year of school. _

Anything you recognize, I don't own.

* * *

She glared at herself in the mirror, green eyes narrowed threateningly at her reflection. "You will not puke, you hear me?" 

Beth, standing behind her, snickered. "Loud and clear."

"Oh, can it," Kate snapped, grinning nonetheless as she turned and headed for the locker room door, Beth trailing smugly behind. Their gym teacher was setting the timer on the wall, and lined all the students up, four abreast.

"Shit, I'm queasy already," Kate whined, and Beth sighed.

"Fantastic. Think you could point your mouth elsewhere?"

Kate rolled her eyes, just as the timer started. The two friends set off at a slow jog, by-passed by most of the class quickly.

"Slow and steady wins the race," Kate murmured, more to herself then her running companion.

"Slow and steady loses the popularity contest," Beth amended.

- - - -

FIVE MINUTES LATER

"Bathroom!" Kate gasped out, legs shakily planted in front of the pudgy gym instructor, face just as green as her eyes.

The teacher gave her an appraising, disapproving look.

Kate gagged.

The instructor's eyes widened, and she nodded quickly, waving one hands toward the bathroom as though beating off a pesky, slightly frightening fly.

With a hand over her mouth and new-found energy, Kate sprinted. Beth clucked her tongue against the roof of her teeth sadly as she jogged past.

- - - -

IN THE BATHROOM

Kate clung to the toilet as tough her life depended on it - and at the very least, her reputation did.

As soon as the nausea passed, she rose, shakily, to her feet, flushed the toilet and headed towards her locker. She still had about an hour of gym left, but she was kind of out of commission for the day.

She paused, catching her reflection in the mirror. Brown curls matted with sweat against her forehead and her back, face pale with splotches of red along her cheeks and an overriding tinge of green.

Kate had always been aware of being pretty, so it surprised her when, suddenly and with a passion, she loathed her reflection.

What kind of human being was she? Incapable of the most primal of instincts of her kind; that of flight? Unable to jog at a slow, steady pace for more than five minutes without puking? Even Beth could do it, and she had a good fifteen pounds on Kate. She would definitely have not survived in the wild.

So, standing in the locker room, feeling small and sick and weak, Kate promised herself that soon, soon she would be able to run.

And once she started to run, Kate knew she would never stop.

- - - -

THREE WEEKS LATER

The sound of her feet pounding against the sidewalk had suddenly taken on a soothing quality. She wasn't sure when it had ceased to mean pain and puke and discomfort, but it had.

- - - -

ONE WEEK LATER

The dreaded thirty minutes run had dawned on Kate Austen's seventh grade class.

Beth groaned, hanging off of Kate's shoulder as they waited for the clock to start.

"Shoot me now and I will die a happy - if fearful - little girl," Beth smiled wickedly as a thought occurred to her. "Then again, I guess you'll be too busy decorating the toilet soon to do so."

Kate smiled complacently. "Not this time, Beth."

"Didn't you say that last time we ran," Beth asked, to scared to be interested but not frightened enough to have lost her sarcasm scared out of her. "And the time before? And the time before that?"

Kate was momentarily taken aback. "Er…well, yeah. But this time's different, Beth!"

The timer started.

- - - -

THIRTY MINUTES LATER

"I'm…dead…I…died…I'm…dead," Beth moaned, collapsing flat onto her back, not aware enough to realize that Kate had run the whole thing without so much as turning red.

"Poor baby," Kate murmured playfully, hefting her friend's body up off the floor.

"Hey, wait! Why aren't you die- dead, I mean?"

Kate shrugged. "I practiced."

- - - -

THE NEXT TWENTY MINUTE RUN

Kate was jogging in place, and Beth was gaping. "I'm excited, aren't you, Beth?

"I'm barely containing my enthusiasm. Seriously; where'd your brain go, Kate? what's gotten in to you?"

Kate paused, frowning at her friend in thought. Finally, she shrugged, and continued to jog. "Dunno, Beth. Guess I just like to run, now."

_---Cayenne_


End file.
